German American culture without the world wars

Imagine a scenario where there were no world wars during the 20th century. Or, if you would like, imagine a scenario where the United States did not get involved in the First World War. Or imagine a scenario where the United States had actually entered the First World War on the same side as Germany, and potentially on the same side as Germany in any follow-up war as well.

In any case, imagine a world where the United States had not fought any major conflict with Germany during the 20th century. Prior to American entry in the war, German American identity was very strong, especially in areas such as the Midwest. This makes sense, as a significant number of Germans had immigrated to the United States during the 19th century and early 20th century. However, once the United States entered World War I on the side of the Entente, there began a severe public repression of German language use and other elements of German cultural identity. Today, German American identity is not nearly as strong as, say, Irish American or Italian American identity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Americans#Assimilation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Americans#World_War_I_anti-German_sentiment

So... how would things have developed differently without any major wars between the United States and Germany during the 20th century?
 
IMHO German-American culture would have been strong nationally but even stronger in various regions - like Wisconsin/Illinois/Minnesota. German language instruction would be very common certainly on a par with French and Spanish if not more so. In the early 20th century German was necessary for hard sciences and probably the most useful language for medicine, that is for a second language for Americans.
 
In Baltimore in 1910, fully one-fourth of the population spoke German--and I'd guess the same was approximately true in Buffalo, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. Seems to me that sloreck is right in that German language instruction would be prevalent, quite possibly outdistancing French. In turn, an America well-grounded in German might well have a greater scientific exchange with Germany, and would be that much farther advanced technically.
 
I should also point out that Yiddish and German are mutually comprehensible, albeit somewhat imperfectly, and of course written Yiddish uses Hebrew characters whilst German used Fractur or Latin characters. For Yiddish speakers, which would be the majority of first and second generation Jews in the USA in the early 20th century, learning "proper" German would be easy and given no anti-German forces this would increase the pool of German speakers.
 
It would have stopped the sudden reduction in German after WWI, and it would have remained in more schools. I question, though, how well it would have passed down through generations. In the fifties, there was a strong, though flawed, thought process that if kids were taught two languages in earliest childhood, they wouldn't learn English as well. I shared an office with a Brooklyn native whose father refused to teach him Italian, just as my own mother (from Chicago) refused to teach me Polish. Those who do speak these languages are often recent immigrants who were born in Europe or elsewhere. In the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," kids took Greek lessons after school let out to preserve their heritage. Those values did not re-emerge until the eighties.

Most high schools eliminated French and Latin from the language line-up in the seventies to save money.

The Yiddish factor might have played a role, as a religious faith created another common bond. But you would need locations with Jewish populations.
 
It would have stopped the sudden reduction in German after WWI, and it would have remained in more schools. I question, though, how well it would have passed down through generations. In the fifties, there was a strong, though flawed, thought process that if kids were taught two languages in earliest childhood, they wouldn't learn English as well. I shared an office with a Brooklyn native whose father refused to teach him Italian, just as my own mother (from Chicago) refused to teach me Polish. Those who do speak these languages are often recent immigrants who were born in Europe or elsewhere. In the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," kids took Greek lessons after school let out to preserve their heritage. Those values did not re-emerge until the eighties.

Most high schools eliminated French and Latin from the language line-up in the seventies to save money.

The Yiddish factor might have played a role, as a religious faith created another common bond. But you would need locations with Jewish populations.

Of course, German American identity could still be much stronger even without widespread German language use. Despite Italian Americans and Polish Americans being somewhat fewer in number, their sense of identity seems much stronger today even though relatively few in the United States are fluent in either language.
 
German would fade away the way other languages did, but at a much slower pace, and there would be much less impetus to americanize last names. The Hoover surname might have stayed as Hüber, among other examples. Without the world wars, German film would also be a massive influencer and competitor with Hollywood.

Washington DC has a small German-American heritage museum in Chinatown, it's worth a visit if anyone's in town.
 
Without the world wars, German film would also be a massive influencer and competitor with Hollywood.

Actually, assuming that Germany does indeed stay a cultural and scientific superpower through the 20th century - imagine a world, for instance, where German language films in American theaters are relatively common - might that stymie the process of assimilation to a degree?
 
The effect would go beyond acceptance of just German culture. The entire nativist WASP movement of the early/mid 20th Century is reduced somewhat. Multilingual skilled would be better rewarded & a bit better taught in the schools.
 
The effect would go beyond acceptance of just German culture. The entire nativist WASP movement of the early/mid 20th Century is reduced somewhat. Multilingual skilled would be better rewarded & a bit better taught in the schools.

Um... your average German-American could very easily be classified as White, Anglo-Saxon (or close enough; the Nordic peoples in general were certainly in that catagory) and Protestant. So its just as likely the "tent" is broaded to accomidate them as they identify with their Swedeish and Anglo American cousins rather than the tent getting torn down entirely.
 
Um... your average German-American could very easily be classified as White, Anglo-Saxon (or close enough; the Nordic peoples in general were certainly in that catagory) and Protestant. So its just as likely the "tent" is broaded to accomidate them as they identify with their Swedeish and Anglo American cousins rather than the tent getting torn down entirely.

The folks who burned barns along the 'German Road' near my home town back in 1915-1920 thought otherwise. The numerous Catholics, German, French, and Irish in the County were targets as well. This was in the early years of the KKK revival and Germans, Swedes, Norskies, were not cut slack on account of their Aryan connection. They weren't "Real Americans" (Scots-English ancestored). When I was a school boy in the 1960s my father named some of the local families involved in the arson, beatings and other fun. Those same families were the folks outraged by the election of of a irish Catholic to the US Presidency. The subject of racism in the US is usually focused on the worst aspect against African ancestored, Native American, Hispanics, but dig just a bit & you will find it cuts in many directions and levels against about every ethnic group identifiable.

Ironically the revived KKK of post 1915 supported the 18th Admendment. The logic was the necessity to deny alcohol to the degenerate lesser races, who could not hold their liquor like the superior Anglo Saxons.

As you say the tent was broadened after a decade or so. The gradual acceptance of Nordics or Germanics as nearly as good as WASPs occurred. One expression was the efforts by some KKK leaders in the 1920s to reconcile with the Catholic Bishops. Still as late as my high school years circa 1970 there were a number of families in my central Indiana homeland, who actively prevented their sons and daughters from dating German surnamed boys like myself, or Irish named like my cousins. One school board member was working to keep the 'right kids' on the school sports teams.

That this cuts many ways is illustrated by the two cemeteries in Demotte Indiana. One burial ground has nothing but Dutch names on the grave markers. The surrounding townships were settled mostly by immigrants from Dutch Frisia. The other cemetery has the lesser folks names on the graves. We checked this last circa 2007 and failed to find a single non Dutch name in the main cemetery.

There is a lot of reading on this subject. magazine articles, newspapers stories, academic research papers. 'Hooded Americanism' is a acessable book covering the 1915 revival of the KKK and its role in the violent effort to suppress non WASP ethinc groups.
 
The folks who burned barns along the 'German Road' near my home town back in 1915-1920 thought otherwise. The numerous Catholics, German, French, and Irish in the County were targets as well. This was in the early years of the KKK revival and Germans, Swedes, Norskies, were not cut slack on account of their Aryan connection. They weren't "Real Americans" (Scots-English ancestored). When I was a school boy in the 1960s my father named some of the local families involved in the arson, beatings and other fun. Those same families were the folks outraged by the election of of a irish Catholic to the US Presidency. The subject of racism in the US is usually focused on the worst aspect against African ancestored, Native American, Hispanics, but dig just a bit & you will find it cuts in many directions and levels against about every ethnic group identifiable.

Ironically the revived KKK of post 1915 supported the 18th Admendment. The logic was the necessity to deny alcohol to the degenerate lesser races, who could not hold their liquor like the superior Anglo Saxons.

As you say the tent was broadened after a decade or so. The gradual acceptance of Nordics or Germanics as nearly as good as WASPs occurred. One expression was the efforts by some KKK leaders in the 1920s to reconcile with the Catholic Bishops. Still as late as my high school years circa 1970 there were a number of families in my central Indiana homeland, who actively prevented their sons and daughters from dating German surnamed boys like myself, or Irish named like my cousins. One school board member was working to keep the 'right kids' on the school sports teams.

That this cuts many ways is illustrated by the two cemeteries in Demotte Indiana. One burial ground has nothing but Dutch names on the grave markers. The surrounding townships were settled mostly by immigrants from Dutch Frisia. The other cemetery has the lesser folks names on the graves. We checked this last circa 2007 and failed to find a single non Dutch name in the main cemetery.

There is a lot of reading on this subject. magazine articles, newspapers stories, academic research papers. 'Hooded Americanism' is a acessable book covering the 1915 revival of the KKK and its role in the violent effort to suppress non WASP ethinc groups.

True in a number of areas historically (Though, full disclosure,my own frame of personal localized reference is Minnesota, so take my analysis of the local population's ability to assimilate the Germans with that grain of salt), but the entire context of this thread, including what I was responding to, is the long-range impacts in a no World Wars scenario. That avoids the imptius of the heaviest wave of anti-German activity and broader acceptance of popular violence/Wilson's Red Scare of the later half of the 1910's. But the real point I'm trying to make is they'll be assimilated rather than, as in the post I was responding to, agreeing with the claim German-American identity will grow more robust.
 
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